Meaning & Analysis
According to European legends, the cockatrice is a mythical serpent, hatched by a reptile from a rooster's egg, that can kill a person with a single glance. The proverb states this mythological 'fact' as a literal truth.
Insights
Instantaneous and Intangible Danger
The proverb serves as a metaphor for a danger that is immediate, silent, and requires no physical contact. It can represent a person, idea, or piece of information so toxic or shocking that its mere appearance or discovery brings about ruin.
The Fatal Power of Judgment
A 'look' can symbolize severe judgment or social condemnation. The proverb suggests that a person's reputation or spirit can be 'slain' by a single act of public scorn or a hateful glare, highlighting the devastating power of social rejection.
Fatal Attraction
The deadly gaze represents a fatal attraction or a seductive but destructive force. Like the cockatrice, some things or people are so dangerously alluring that to even look upon them—to engage with them in the slightest—is to invite one's own downfall.
Mythological and Cultural Roots
The cockatrice, a mythical beast from medieval bestiaries, symbolizes ultimate sin, particularly envy and lust. Its deadly gaze was seen as a manifestation of demonic power, capable of corrupting or destroying the soul upon sight. This proverb taps into the widespread cultural belief in the 'evil eye', a malevolent glare thought to cause misfortune or injury.
Literary Resonance
Shakespeare and his contemporaries frequently used the cockatrice to signify an inescapable and sudden doom. In 'Richard III', a character is described as a cockatrice 'whose unavoided eye is murtherous', vividly illustrating how a person's very presence can be perceived as a fatal, corrupting force.
Psychological Power of Perception
The proverb explores the psychological impact of being seen and judged. The 'slaying' gaze is a powerful metaphor for the destructive potential of hatred, envy, or condemnation, which can annihilate a person's spirit, reputation, or social standing without any physical contact. It gives monstrous form to the abstract terror of social malevolence.
Rhetorical Devices
Mythological Allusion
The entire proverb is built on an allusion to the well-known myth of the cockatrice. This allows the phrase to evoke a rich set of associations—unnatural birth, serpentine evil, and inescapable death—with extreme conciseness.
Symbolism
The cockatrice itself is a powerful symbol for a non-physical but lethal threat. Its gaze represents the abstract forces of hatred, envy, or fatal knowledge made manifest.
Hyperbole
The claim of killing with a look is a dramatic overstatement used to emphasize the extreme and sudden destructiveness of a particular person or phenomenon. It elevates a hostile glance to the level of a mortal weapon.
Transcription
Quotations
What a cockatryse syght was it to se such an abhomynable sort of pompos bisshops in lordly parlament robys.
The cocatrice by sight only slayeth.
His sight to me is like the sight of a Cockeatrice.
And kill with looks, as cockatrices doo.
Mischiefe is like the cockatrice's eyes Sees first and kills; is seene first and dies.
And the cockatrice so hurtfull . . banefull, that it killeth only with its look.
Shakespeare Citations
Here with a cockatrice’ deadkilling eye He rouseth up himself and makes a pause.
And that bare vowel ‘I’ shall poison more Than the deathdarting eye of cockatrice.
A cockatrice hast thou hatch’d to the world, Whose unavoided eye is murtherous.
They will kill one another by the look, like cockatrices.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.